Another Gun Grabber Speaks

 Over at Ammoland, David Codrea has a particularly angry and biting article entitled Gun Prohibitionist Ultimatum Warrants Appropriate Gun Owner Response. I do not blame Codrea in the least. Once again, we have a gun-grabber trying to relitigate the past 100 years of the "gun debate" and impose his chosen "solution." In his fevered mind, we are to give up our rights because if we don't, he will do worse. Like Codrea, I say to go ahead and do your worst. I will not disarm.

“I would personally suggest the gun control groups develop a BATNA to help induce more good-faith negotiating,” Tom H. Hastings, Director of the Peace and Nonviolence Studies, Conflict Resolution graduate program at Portland State University and Secretary for the Oregon Peace Studies Consortium writes in the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal.

“BATNA?” Hastings asks rhetorically (“Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement”). “It simply means that, if you are trying to negotiate with anyone, it’s important to not only think about ‘what if these negotiations fail,’ but to let the others know what you will be forced to do in that case.”

What does Hastings believe he’s “negotiating,” with whom, and what will he feel compelled to do if his demands aren’t met?

"My choice of BATNA would be, ‘Look gun rights people, we want to negotiate common sense regulations with you,” Hastings explains. “However, literally every time we pass such measures at the local or state level, you work to overcome the will of the people by challenging those commonsense measures in court, with your lawsuits, and it’s all based on the Second Amendment.”

“So we have a best alternative to a negotiated agreement,” Hastings imagines. “Our BATNA is that we are going to stop all other gun control work and focus all our resources on a campaign to repeal the Second Amendment.”

No carrot, just the stick? Give us everything we demand or we’re going to take even more? Hastings’ use of the term “negotiating” invokes nothing so much as Inigo Montoya’s famous “You keep using that word” line from The Princess Bride.

Here’s a counter-BATNA, Mr. Hastings: No. Your move.

Here's the thing: a negotiation requires that both sides give up something of value to achieve a common goal. In the case of the gun debate, gun owners are asked to give up a valuable right, the right of armed self-defense, in exchange for what, exactly? This has been the gun-gabbers cry all along. We are supposed to give up our rights in exchange for nothing. The other side "feels" unsafe and that is supposed to be our problem. But they could grow a pair and change how the feel just as easily.  What Mr. Hastings is offering sounds more like terms of surrender, as if he had won a battle or something. Well, no thank you. I will keep my guns, and Hastings can go pound sand.

Please read the whole article. Codrea has some choice words for this hippie peacenik.